Success Stories

College of Business student hopes to hit the ‘big time’

Christopher Adams knows where and for whom he’d like to work—at the State Department in
Washington for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“It’s a dream of mine to work for the federal government and eventually I’d love to
be a politician,” Adams says. “Since I’m majoring in marketing with international
relations as a minor, I would like to market my country by helping to craft foreign policy.”

Lofty dreams often become reality when you work hard to make it happen. And Adams, a third-year student
in the College of Business, has been doing just that. He is an honors student, a new member of Triangle
Fraternity and president of the Lowenthal Group, a service and leadership organization in the College
of Business. He has recently completed his prerequisite 22-week co-op job at Complemar—a fulfillment
and contract packaging business in Rochester.

“At Complemar, I acted as a marketing director, worked on language for their Web site, developed
one tri-fold brochure, and implemented personal marketing programs for individual sales reps,” Adams
explains. “Now I’m preparing to come back to RIT and prepare for the ‘beast’—a
capstone course about middle- and upper-management-level marketing problems and processes.”

Adams has been a force within the Lowenthal Group and in late September he engaged 12 students to
walk in the Alzheimer Association’s Memory Walk—personally raising $1,800 for the cause. “It’s
something I do every year in honor of my father, Gerard, who had a related form of Alzheimer’s,” says
Adams. “I was 15 when he died.”

At RIT, Adams says no other person on campus has had a greater impact on him than Marty Burris. “I
worked with her in the Lowenthal Group and I admire her drive, how much she enjoys working with others.
She has been such an inspiration to me.”

“Chris and I will remain in touch for the rest of our lives,” says Burris, who served
as Lowenthal advisor for four years.

“Just recently I took a new job at RIT as director of family giving in the Development Office,
but wanted to ensure that Chris and the Lowenthal Group had a smooth transition,” Burris relates. “I
invited Chris over to my house to chat but found he was allergic to cats, so we met at a restaurant.
Instead of a table for two, it was a table for 10 because Chris had organized a dinner with current
and former Lowenthal officers. It was one of the very few surprises in my life. And I found out that
Chris is not allergic to cats but figured that would get me out of the house. Pretty smooth!”

Adams has kept a journal since he was in 10th grade to help him preserve memories and gain perspective
on his life. “Right now, I’m on volume two, and if I become famous, I can look back on the
steps it took to get me there,” he says with a grin.

“One of the things I’ll remember about RIT is when Troy McLain, the farm boy from The
Apprentice, came to talk on campus,” Adams recalls.

“I rode with him from the airport and Troy gave me a quick rundown about having high emotional
intelligence to be a winner. But Trump fired him and that’s when I thought to myself, ‘I
can do better.’”